Uranus will be well placed for observation, in the constellation
Aries. It will be visible for much of the night, reaching its
highest point in the sky at around midnight local time.

From Ashburn (click to change), it will be visible between 20:08 and 05:42. It will become accessible at around 20:08, when it rises 20° above your eastern horizon, and then reach its highest point in the sky at 00:57, 61° above your southern horizon. It will become inaccessible at around 05:42 when it sinks to 21° above your western horizon.

Uranus opposite the Sun

This optimal positioning occurs when Uranus is almost directly opposite
the Sun in the sky. Since the Sun reaches its greatest distance below the
horizon at midnight, the point opposite to it is highest in the sky at the same
time.

At around the same time that Uranus passes opposition, it also makes
its closest approach to the Earth – termed its perigee –
making it appear at its
brightest and largest.

This happens because when Uranus lies opposite the Sun in the sky, the
solar system is lined up so that Uranus, the Earth and the Sun form a
straight line with the Earth in the middle, on the same side of the Sun as
Uranus.

In practice, however, Uranus orbits much further out in the solar system than the Earth – at an average distance from the Sun of 19.29 times that of the Earth,
and so its angular size does not vary much as it cycles between
opposition and solar conjunction.

On this occasion, Uranus will lie at a distance of
18.88 AU,
and its disk will measure
3.7 arcsec
in diameter, shining at magnitude 5.7. Even at its closest approach
to the Earth, however, it is not possible to distinguish it as more than a
star-like point of light
without the aid of a telescope.

Uranus in coming weeks

Over the weeks following its opposition, Uranus will reach
its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually
receding from the pre-dawn morning sky while remaining visible in the evening
sky for a few months.

A chart of the path of Uranus across the sky in 2018 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE405 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.